[prewett]

> When you decide to hang out your shingle and profit at the expense of the general public

Whoa whoa whoa, you can't just assume that profits come at the expense of the public! There are plenty of businesses that provide valuable goods and services for which I am happy to pay their profit margin, because the value they are providing to me is at least that amount. There are entire companies that spend their entire day coordinating shipments of food for me, including out-of-season fruit and fruits and vegetables unavailable in my location. There are companies that have invested in hideously expensive fabs and detailed technical knowledge to bring my inexpensive microchips that make my first computer look glacially slow. I happily pay Apple's profit margin because I get great hardware that looks elegant and has an operating system that is both Unix and doesn't require me to futz with it. The list goes on. This Marxist idea that companies are inherently exploitative is just incorrect and unhelpful. (That doesn't mean that everything is necessarily great, though, just that it does not take into account the other, very real side. It's not like a society built on companies = exploitative has ever worked in the real world.)